Injury report: Tyrell Williams, Kevin Strong miss practice on Thursday

Tyrell Williams remains in the NFL’s concussion protocol.

The Detroit Lions face off against the Green Bay Packers this week and because the game is on Monday instead of Sunday, there is a slight schedule change in how the injury report is released. The first report of the week comes out on Thursday—instead of Wednesday—and the teams don’t have to declare injury designations until Saturday.

With the extra day, comes more information for the media to observe and absorb. On Wednesday, the Lions held a shortened practice and we got a first look at the roster post-Week 1. There were several in-game injuries and some players were still dealing with them mid-week. For example, WR Tyrell Williams and DL Kevin Strong were both injured during last weekend’s game and neither was at practice Wednesday.

On Thursday, the team was back to their regular schedule and we got even more information about the team’s injuries. Let’s take a closer look.

No practice on Thursday

• WR Tyrell Williams (concussion)
• DL Kevin Strong (concussion)

Williams remains in the NFL concussion protocol after taking a flagged hit from 49ers safety Jaquiski Tartt last weekend. When coach Dan Campbell was asked about his feeling about Williams being able to play on Monday, he was not optimistic.

“I can tell you he’s not in the building today,” Campbell said at Thursday’s press conference. “Like, right now, it doesn’t look great, but we’ll see what tomorrow looks like.”

Additionally, we did not know Strong’s injury before today, but because it was revealed as also a concussion, he would have to follow the same guidelines as Williams before he is eligible to return.

Per the league’s five-step concussion protocol rules, if Williams and Strong are not able able to return to a non-contact practice on Friday and full-contact practice on Saturday, they would be unable to fulfill the requirements to be cleared for Monday’s game and would be ruled out.

Limited practice

• D’Andre Swift (Groin)
• Jamaal Williams (Chest)
• Trey Flowers (Shoulder)
• Romeo Okwara (Shoulder)
• Michael Brockers (Shoulder)

This is an important list of key players for the Lions, but a limited practice leaves the door open for them to play in Green Bay. It’s important to keep in mind, all five players finished the game last weekend, which is a reason to be optimistic about their potential to play on “MNF”. But, as we saw with Taylor Decker last week, we will need to see how the rest of the participation levels in practice play out this week before we will truly know their statuses.

Full practice

• Levi Onwuzurike (hip)

While Onwuzurike missed last week’s game, getting in a full practice is a big step in the right direction, and Campbell seemed hopeful he would make his NFL debut this week.

“I would say (Onwuzurike’s) trending the right way,” Campbell said. “We put him through a really good workout Sunday to see how he felt for gameday, even though he was down and he responded well. So, we’re excited. I think we’d like to see if we can get him up this week, but we’ll see where the week goes.”